And just like that I was breathless. Unable to think of a damn thing to say. And, apparently, neither was he. The limitations of the phone had never seemed quite so eerie, even when he’d been nothing but a voice to me. Now that I’d seen him, felt him, tasted him, being only able to hear him felt noticeably less.
“If you’re mine,” Caspian murmured, “you have to do what I say.”
Fuck, I just couldn’t read his tone. I went for coquettish. “Oh really? Is that the rules?”
“It’s my rules.”
“I’m not very good at following rules.”
“But you like doing what I tell you.”
He had me there. I did like doing what he told me. I liked it a lot. Something stirred beneath my frazzled nerves. Oh, hello, libido. Guess you’re not dead after all. “It’s…” My mouth had gone dry on me. “It’s pretty rewarding.”
“You’d think differently if you knew me better.”
“Why? You have a dungeon you want to show me?”
“I don’t have a dungeon.” His most severe voice.
“Then you shouldn’t tease a boy.” He laughed and I relaxed a little. His or not, pretend or not, we were still us. Whatever that meant. However fragile and unlikely it seemed. “So…um…is there anything you’d like to tell me to do now?”
“I’d tell you, quite insistently, that you’re going to be fine. Finals aren’t as important as you think they are, and even if you came away with nothing, if you decided you couldn’t bear to sit a single exam, I’d still think the world of you. And then”—that enthralling tenderness vanished abruptly—“I’d point out that it’s very late and tell you to go to bed.”
“Oh.” I pouted to my empty room. “You’re right. That’s not very rewarding.”
“You might feel differently when you’re not exhausted tomorrow.”
“I’m trying, but as soon as I close my eyes, my brain starts whirling and I start dreading everything and then I just get overwhelmed.”
“But you’re with me now. Lie down, Arden. Rest.” And there it was. That irresistible mixture of authority and gentleness. Seducing and conquering and soothing me at the same time. “I’m not going to leave you.”
Balancing the phone as best I could against my shoulder, I unrumpled my duvet with my feet and wriggled under. I closed my eyes, trying to brace myself for a fresh flood of panic. Sure enough, even with the whisper of his breath over the line, the first image my mind conjured was a finals paper. A jumble of unintelligible word-spiders crawling over white. “This isn’t going to work. And you can’t stay with me all night.”
“I would, if you needed me.”
I was warm under the covers, so my shiver was all surprised pleasure. “You shouldn’t. I’m really not going to be able to sleep.”
“What do you normally do when you feel restless?”
“I…um, get up again, until I don’t?” There was no answer. But I could imagine his expression easily enough. The rebuke in the set of his mouth. The chill of his eyes. “Or maybe read a book? Wank myself into a stupor. The usual stuff.”
“Does it help?”
“Depends on the book.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Ngh. His voice. That note of command, cool and unyielding, like chains wrapping me up tight. “Um, yes. Tends to quiet my brain. If nothing else, it’s distracting.”
There was a silence. Distorted, as ever, by the medium of our communication, and unreadable.
“Then perhaps you should try that,” he offered.
“Are you telling me to?” It was out before I could think better of it.
My toes curled hopefully. Yes, I was still probably going to vomit hysterically over the steps of the Exam Schools and then fail all my papers, but that was tomorrow. Tonight there was phone sex with a billionaire. At least, I thought there might be. Or I’d just hideously embarrassed myself.
Was this a good pause or a bad pause?
